Oh dear lj you are getting paranoid The reason I put up the post about the thread was to let people know what was happening to stop speculation. If they had seen it had gone then peole would have thought that quite understandably. Me pm'd me early this morning to say they wrote the post late last night, and wasn't quite happy with it and it needed "tweeking" and would we remove it till they changed it a little. Please feel free to pm Me and ask. I'm afraid CR not guilty this time

yep, I cannot help but always thinking the worst in this case. While I am not a paranoid type of person (most call me unbelievable naive) I do think the worst of our conning couple with their CR (iminal?) friends...................

____________________"And if Madeleine had hurt herself inside the apartment, why would that be our fault?" Gerry

I too did start wondering if there was something ominous about the disappearance of Me's excellent article but it's a holiday weekend here and it's to be hoped that Carter Ruck and Team McCann are off duty at present!

** sorry folks been tied up today, apologies for the delay** Here's the final version - i havent been carter Rucked yet!**:

So it seems the game has changed.

Studious followers of the Madeleine McCann case can’t fail to have noticed the sea change which has taken place over recent weeks in the strategy employed by the organisation we refer to as Team McCann. It’s not so much a new angle or a new tactic per se, more the ramping up of a tried, tested and up until recently, trusted method they’ve used regularly over these last four tempestuous years. What’s different now is that this technique appears to be reaching a crescendo in terms of the intensity, the aggressiveness and the pressure being applied by the Team against their perceived enemies.

What’s interesting is not so much what they’re doing but why they’re doing it now. More on that later.

It amounts to this. Their approach has now - after 4 years - moved away from attempting to massage the evidence, to distort the contradictions in their accounts and to simply ignore both the clear collusion between witnesses and the downright lies contained in their statements, which all the world (well those who can be bothered to look) can see for themselves in the official files.

The Team appear to have made a strategic decision to change their tack, and it can be no coincidence that this shift has occurred since Amaral’s victory in Court. It seems to me that the Team have concluded that the tactics I mentioned in the paragraph above, despite having worked well for the last four years, will not work forever in holding back the tide of damning –yet admittedly circumstantial at this stage - evidence found in the PJ files, in Amaral’s now unbanned book and from the wealth of amateur sleuthing, cross examination and dissection of those files which can be found on the internet. The Team’s goal, so it seems, is to keep this information as far away as possible from the minds and the consciousness of the majority of the UK public, for whom they rely on for donations and book purchases who are, let's not forget, in the main largely unaware of the sheer weight of unfavourable material against the Team.

So one must speculate that somewhere in Rothley a meeting or two has taken place recently to determine how to plug the holes that are appearing in this information dam, and how the Team can once again continue to drive and control the wider agenda, as Gerry once called it, before that dam finally bursts.

The outcome of those meetings would, from recent events, suggest that the Team intend to defend themselves and their actions not by producing overwhelming and conclusive evidence supporting their theories but by solely hiding under the odious umbrella of defamation and screaming libel when anyone dares question not only their version of events but also, unbelievably, when forum discussions turns to the information and evidence contained within the official investigation files as well.

Fortified and insulated by the profits from the book the Team appear to have concluded that attack is the best form of defence in order to silence those poor souls brave enough to poke their heads above the parapet and ask questions of them and their T7 harpies.

So we’re seeing, and Amaral & TB are examples of this, not merely the Team attempting to set the record straight with their own evidence based version of events, but instead the launching of an aggressive and proactive campaign of legal blitzkrieg on any and all vocal dissenters. Their weapon of choice is now the viciously sharp spear of the UK’s lamentable libel laws thrown with gusto and great aplomb by those most charmless of attack dogs at Carter Ruck, and their frankly spooky Portuguese lawyer in Amaral’s case.

It’s also interesting – and amusing - to see the enthusiasm with which their band of merry foot soldiers across the internet have also so heartily embraced this new change of tactic. I never realised the Team had so many followers who have become (all of a sudden) so well versed in the laws of libel and defamation. Either they’ve all gone out and bought “libel law for dummies” over recent weeks, or they, like their masters, see this as a new, but nevertheless final frontier in defending the Team and silencing the critics. Either way it reeks of the Team and their followers having given up on the arguments relating to the known facts of the case and now conceding, with a shrug of the shoulders, that this game, now, is purely about damage limitation and controlling the flow of information to the masses, or for those of a more cynical disposition, their customer base.

It’s been refreshing and no less amusing to see the change in the nature of the attacks on those sceptical of the Team which was illustrated by the email received by Get em Goncalo and posted in this forum. We can see this new approach from the Team’s disciples working as one and in perfect harmony with the Team’s own change of tactic. Where once we saw rabid cries from the disciples of “read the files, read the files” to counter any criticism, now we see posts and PM’s which essentially amount to “you can’t say that, you’ve libelled our Team we’re telling Carter Ruck on you”.

Indeed a cursory glance at the recent work of some of the more vocal, prominent and dare I say swivel eyed followers of the McCann’s now seems to focus not on actually arguing the facts of the case but solely on analysing every posted word on the various anti McCann forums in an attempt to root out and deliver judgement (using their newly found legal expertise) on other people’s opinions in the vein hope they can find a bone juicy enough to take back to the alpha males of the pack at Carter Ruck Towers.

Their motivation for spending countless hours trawling forums they are inherently repulsed by and studying the thoughts and words of posters they loathe with an almost unhealthy amount of venom, seems to amount to nothing more than being able to run back to the Team’s bunker to receive a pat on the head, a “well done” and a dog biscuit for their good work. It would be laughable if it wasn’t so serious given that these same followers seem to believe that salvation for the non-believers lies only in financial ruin, separation of families (as In Amaral’s case) and prison (as in TB’s case).

Irrespective of the paucity of intellectual merit in rebutting the accusations against the parents this strategy creates, lest we forget it’s easy for this cheery group of internet warriors to scream libel when someone else or more precisely, someone else’s publically donated fund, is picking up the legal tab.

Where the pied piper leads the children do follow.

So where now? Well it seems we can’t talk about what the Team members said in their PJ interviews and draw our own conclusions on the way their accounts have changed and been polished over the years. This despite knowing as we do that their later statements have had the clear sheen of refinement applied to them by the expensively assembled legal and crisis management teams.

Despite the money and talent thrown at these statements and notwithstanding the hours spent in that hotel in Rothley in 2007 and taking into account the continual presence (since 2007) of the legal equivalent of a Praetorian guard, the old expression that you can’t polish a turd springs to mind. Let’s be clear, the damage was done in those first statements and no amount of high flying legal sparkle can fully eradicate the frankly rancid odour emanating from those early accounts.

But yet if the Team get their way then we aren’t going to be allowed to discuss and dissect these statements because to do so, according to the attack dogs, is to defame the McCann’s.

I’d suggest that the defamation inherent in those accounts was perpetrated by the McCann’s themselves in so spectacularly managing to confuse, contradict and remember things they had previously forgotten with each new version they provided to the investigation.

Nor, it seems, can we speculate as to why their accounts changed despite the right minded amongst us knowing full well that the Team have all along wanted (and still want) to present and control a narrative that supports their actions, fits their theories and achieves their goals, and at the same time discredits and discounts the 17,000 pages of case files which concluded under two different lead detectives that the foundations were there to begin building a case against the McCann’s .

The team now regard anyone refusing to accept the case on their terms as a legitimate target, to be taken out, silenced and ruined, and any criticism is met with the unflinching iron fist of the UK’s most infamous (and most expensive) libel lawyers. Their mantra is that any criticism and any questioning is by default defamation against the McCann’s even if the criticism originates from and is based on the information or conclusions found in the PJ’s official investigation into the case.

Let’s be clear on the scale of absurdity we are dealing with here. The Team and their legal Rottweiler’s are claiming (one can only presume with a straight face) that it is libellous and defamatory to repeat and post accusations and information which are drawn directly from the official police investigation and subsequent prosecutor’s report in this case. Please take in and consider the sheer arrogance and brass neck of these people for just a second. You truly couldn’t make it up.

We seem to be at a place now in this case with the Team’s new stratagem in full effect where we aren’t even allowed to fill in the gaps between the information contained in the files and the subsequent actions of members of the Team, nor does it seem we can investigate and discuss the people they have both surrounded themselves and - metaphorically - jumped into bed with.

The absurdity and totalitarian nature of their strategy even extends to them telling us which pictures we can use, with the threat of more legal thunder descending down upon us if we dare to show images they deem unsuitable, irrespective of whether these pictures are in the public domain already. Take for example the recent shot in Holland where Kate looks like she’s ready to be sectioned. Even though that particular picture was taken as part of their own PR blitz in launching their book over there, a decree came down from the Team’s bunker that it mustn’t be used anymore, and anyone who dared to disobey this diktat was told in no uncertain terms that failure to comply would result in the legal hounds being released upon them! The sheer contempt, conceit and narcissism of these people knows no bounds.

What have things come to? If their methods are allowed to win through then investigative journalism and free speech is finished and we may as well all go and live in North Korea. Indeed thinking about it, the tactics, strategy and sheer chutzpah of the Team at the moment does have more than a whiff of North Korea’s “beloved” Kim Jong Il about it. He too controls the information, silences the dissenters, crushes the opposition (admittedly Old Kim does this through physical means rather than the Team’s attempts at crushing opposition using financial means) all the while making a nice living off the back of the struggles of others -how many people I wonder have contributed to the fund who couldn’t really afford to do so but thought they were helping to find a missing girl.

This wouldn’t be so galling were it not for the fact that the team themselves think nothing of, and actively pursue as a legitimate strategy their own libelling of others including the PJ, Amaral and Martin Grime in an attempt to control and manipulate the flow of news and information released in the mainstream media so as to convince the world that they are innocent, the investigation was botched and that they were eventually cleared in court. This despite the somewhat irksome fact (to the McCann’s at least) that the investigation and subsequent prosecutors’ reports have explicitly refused to exonerate them and let’s not forget the small matter that actually, and in reality, they have never been cleared by any Court either here in the UK or in Portugal.

Indeed for the purpose of clarity the only time the Team have ever seen a courtroom in this case is in their zealous, spiteful and vindictive efforts to not just silence Goncalo Amaral but to actively destroy him both financially and emotionally. Encouragingly, what we’ve seen so far from the Team is an abject failure to do anything other than add to the cloud of suspicion hanging over them, much less acquit themselves, regardless of the brazen and untruthful claims their feral legal hounds may bark to the contrary.

What is truly sickening is that a fund requesting donations from the public, set up supposedly to help fund the hunt for a missing child has silently metamorphosized into nothing more than a Carter Ruck retainer account, seemingly hijacked from its publically stated aims to act as a legal blunt instrument with which to overwhelm and outgun any dissenting voice that doesn’t agree with the Team or questions their uncorroborated, unproven and evidenceless version of events.

One thing is for sure, the money donated is certainly not being used to look for the missing child.

The McCann’s desperately seek exoneration. For me they need to clear two obstacles in order to finally and legitimately claim their innocence, both of which they have so far been completely unwilling to address or tackle.

Firstly how about the Team giving us just one piece of solid evidence to support their theories? I’m discounting Jane “phew” Tanner’s erratic attempt at evidence which, when viewed in entirety, from its inception hours after the child went missing through to its culmination in the Rogatory interview, amounts to nothing more than a badly thought out and pitifully delivered work of fiction.

Secondly we also need the Team and their acolytes to come forward and explain the inconsistences, the changes in the stories, the lies and the deceit in their statements and to provide an explanation to account for their steadfast refusal to cooperate in the investigation both at the time of the disappearance and ever since.

Until such time as the McCann’s can do this then as far as I’m concerned they haven’t been exonerated, they are not cleared and the weight of circumstantial evidence still points very much in their direction. If they want to be fully cleared, given the conclusions of the PJ’s incomplete investigation, then they have to earn the right of exoneration by yielding fully to the questioning their stories and actions have warranted, and they must allow themselves, unconditionally, to cooperate totally with both the PJ and if necessary SY in helping to complete the investigation.

To say there is no evidence against them (the de facto defence of the pros, Clarence the cross eyed liar and Carter Ruck) simply doesn’t wash and is disingenuous. The simple truth, and it’s an inconvenient one for the McCann’s, is that at the point of the investigation being shelved (and let’s not forget why it was shelved – why didn’t you perform the reconstruction Gerry?) there simply wasn’t enough evidence to bring a case to court against the McCann’s.

Any right minded person can see that that doesn’t automatically mean they are in the clear and it certainly doesn’t mean they don’t have further questions to answer satisfactorily in order to claim their Holy Grail of exoneration.

The pertinent question then is this. Given their rabid desire for liberation why are they so reluctant to engage and cooperate with the PJ in order to achieve salvation in their promised land of exoneration?

Look, let me give the Team some well intentioned advice. The way out of the mess you have created is actually unerringly simple. Get on the plane to Faro, answer any and every question, complete the reconstruction and take those lie detector tests. If the Team are as innocent as they claim why would they refuse to do this? What have they to lose in doing so? In fact they have everything to gain by cooperating fully and allowing, finally after four year, the PJ to fully complete their investigations.

If the Team are proven innocent at the end of that process they will receive, very publically, and no doubt to much organised (by them) fanfare, the exoneration they so desperately crave.

Yet despite having had every opportunity to clear up the unanswered questions and the suspicion that still hangs over them like a bad smell they refuse to do so and you have to wonder why that is if they are really truly innocent.

In my opinion what we’re seeing is the dying embers of what has been a truly brilliant exercise in fund raising, information and campaign management, agenda driving and critic silencing that will surely be dissected and studied for many years to come. I’m no fan of the Team and their various rag tag group of members but I doff my cap to the organisation and campaign they have created and built over the last four years, however distasteful I find their methods.

Think back to those heady days when Kate & Gerry were being wheeled in, humiliatingly and publically for questioning, with Gerry on the verge of breakdown. Who could have imagined then that they could have strode away so purposely from the edge of the precipice they faced, and in the manner that we’ve seen since.

Credit where it is due, the Team have fought hard and tirelseesly to create something quite brilliant, the likes of which we’ve never seen before in a case like this. However, ironically and importantly for me the Team haven't fought with anything approaching the same level of vigour and determination in actually looking for the missing child as they have in feeding and developing their media campaign and missing child business. That truly is the source of my disgust in their actions and is at the heart of this matter as far as i'm concerned.

Be under no false illsuions the team have essentially created a monster. The tools they’ve utilised in order to create their monster are the same instruments which will ultimately destroy them. The modern age that they have exploited so successfully in creating what amounts to a business venture out of their missing child, with the power of the internet at the centre, is the same beast which will eventually consume them.

They are now, despite their legal bravado, on rocky ground. The internet and this case in particular has spawned many amateur investigators who have done so much over the last four years in an attempt to uncover the truth of this case. The eagerness with which so many people have taken up this cause, coupled with the unfavourable legal system in Portugal which has (unhelpfully for the Team) released into the public domain most of the files relating to the case, have culminated in a simple yet unpalatable truth for the Team. That is that there is only so long you can keep the plates of truth spinning before eventually one by one they begin to tumble. Amaral’s victory in court earlier this year saw the first one fall and I feel certain more will fall soon.

With this new, aggressive and somewhat high risk strategy employed by the Team we seem to be looking at what amounts to the beginnings of an end game here, a fight to the death I think Blacksmith called it. With the on-going legal battles against Amaral, following their defeat earlier this year, and with the cold case review underway by Scotland Yard we may just be seeing the last desperate acts of one of the most infamous cases of recent years.

I would urge you all to remain steadfast, to not be intimidated by bullies however deep their publically donated pockets are. Stick to the facts in the files and work from there. If you get Carter Rucked quote the files and the information from the investigation. Dispute their claims of exoneration from the final prosecutor’s report (notice - not a judge’s verdict) and remind them of the Portuguese court’s judgment that the theories put forward by Amaral and the PJ are valid.

Ah...Bennett's latest trick: write a defamatory article about the McCanns, dump it in Havern forum under another nick (sock), wait if the item is picked up by the pros, then Bennett pulls the article quickly, so it's not Bennett, but the pros spreading libel and defamation, nothing to do with Bennett, because the article is nowhere to find in his forum, only on the pros websites, and meanwhile his rubbish is distributed.

I have been informed this article has already being seen by Carter Ruck, another reason not to publish this story. Besides that the article is boring, incorrect and inaccurate information, pure speculation as part of the ongoing smearcampaign from Bennett and his cronies, against the Tapas friends and the parents of the missing child Madeleine McCann.

I loved your summing up of the Fund as the 'Carter-Ruck Retainer account.'

On their website Carter Ruck are looking for more staff (lawyers qualified 1 - 4 years) - presumably to spend every day on sites like this reviewing every nuance in every post.

I agree, as a example of media management and control, Team McCann has done a brilliant job. Hopefully it will make it onto journalism and PR courses for educational and training purposes. Certainly the way the media has been silenced in this case is worthy of a masters thesis for a journalism student. But would Carter Ruck try to stop the thesis appearing in the university library?

Ah...Bennett's latest trick: write a defamatory article about the McCanns, dump it in Havern forum under another nick (sock), wait if the item is picked up by the pros, then Bennett pulls the article quickly, so it's not Bennett, but the pros spreading libel and defamation, nothing to do with Bennett, because the article is nowhere to find in his forum, only on the pros websites, and meanwhile his rubbish is distributed.

I have been informed this article has already being seen by Carter Ruck, another reason not to publish this story. Besides that the article is boring, incorrect and inaccurate information, pure speculation as part of the ongoing smearcampaign from Bennett and his cronies, against the Tapas friends and the parents of the missing child Madeleine McCann.

Ha! I have been accused of many things in the past but being Tony Bennett is not one of them!

Given that the post was originally uploaded by me on Friday evening approaching midnight, then pulled down yesterday morning whilst i did more work on it and then finally uploaded Saturday evening approaching midnight i wonder how the hell Carter Ruck can have seen it already.

Do these people have special red "hot lines" direct to Carter Ruck like some kind of modern day version of the Bat Phone?

I'd like to know how passing comment on information that's already out there and analysing the actions of the Team amounts to defamation?

Everyone can see that nowhere in that post do I speculate as to the guilt or innocence of the parents in this case.

It just further reinforces the gist of the post. These people are so obsessed with defamation and libel they don’t have a clue as to what it actually is!

Great post, Me. I must admit I had been noticing a lot of this, but could never have expressed it in such clear terms. And I hadn't realised that one is no longer allowed to refer to the original statements and compare them with more recent "explanations". I have a feeling that we may be heading towards the final act of this drama, and I hope that my faith in the ability of the justice system in Britain and Portugal to reach a just conclusion is not misplaced. If it is, what hope is there for any vulnerable citizen anywhere ever again?

Fantastic image and the reality is rather like that, isn't it? Yes, it looks like TM is trying to intimidate a vociferous minority. Somehow, I don't think it's just for the McC's, but mainly to give them time to get their protectors in a position of safety. I rather think that they can never be brought to justice but with any luck the fund will be shut down and that will be nearly as bad for them. The general public will begin to have doubts when that happens and they will just have to find an alternative lifestyle.

How are they going to stop Pat Brown from doing her own reconstruction in Portugal and publishing it on DVD? Haven't heard anything about that, whereas TB seems a rather easy target. But telling him to remove quite a number of items which have been in the public domain for years, such as the list of 48 questions Kate refused to answer, seems an act of desperation.

Their motivation for spending countless hours trawling forums they are inherently repulsed by and studying the thoughts and words of posters they loathe with an almost unhealthy amount of venom, seems to amount to nothing more than being able to run back to the Team’s bunker to receive a pat on the head, a “well done” and a dog biscuit for their good work. It would be laughable if it wasn’t so serious given that these same followers seem to believe that salvation for the non-believers lies only in financial ruin, separation of families (as In Amaral’s case) and prison (as in TB’s case).

I've been following the case since the last days of the Mirror Forum to 3As to MissingMadeleine and now I'm here. I think that the pro posters that you mention are in it for a little more than a pat on the back and a dog biscuit, myself. I'm fairly sure within my bones that along with members of the actual Tapas clans, there are posters who are paid to post and disrupt. Sometimes they are obvious and sometimes they're not. They play a very long game and have a strategy, very often of gaining the trust of other posters by posting for months or even years about how skeptical they are about the McCanns' version of events. Often these are the very posters who are most interested in finding out the real identitities of other posters - as another one of their strategies is to stir up trouble between individuals on teh boards. And I will also add that they seem to aim at becoming mods if they can. How many of the moderators/admin have done inexplicable 180 degree turns on the issue of who was responsible for what happened to Madeleine McCann?

By the way Me - have you taken out the reference to the WAR CHEST? I liked that bit

@tigger wrote:I rather think that they can never be brought to justice but with any luck the fund will be shut down and that will be nearly as bad for them. The general public will begin to have doubts when that happens and they will just have to find an alternative lifestyle.

I presume you mean the Fund will shut because it has run out of money as opposed to being shut down by an outside authority. I don't see any outside intervention as long as accounts and returns are filed by the due dates. That is basically all an ordinary private limited company has to do - and that is what the Fund is.

I doubt if there are many donations from the general public now. The book will have brought in substantial income but then Carter Ruck don't come cheap. I don't believe what Kate says in the book that they do a lot of work pro bono.

So unless they make the film of the book (suggestions for actors to play Kate and Gerry welcome), funds could run out if they keep on the threatening legal tactics.

I also agree that people may be paid to troll sites and cause confusion and dissent.

@tigger wrote:I rather think that they can never be brought to justice but with any luck the fund will be shut down and that will be nearly as bad for them. The general public will begin to have doubts when that happens and they will just have to find an alternative lifestyle.

I presume you mean the Fund will shut because it has run out of money as opposed to being shut down by an outside authority. I don't see any outside intervention as long as accounts and returns are filed by the due dates. That is basically all an ordinary private limited company has to do - and that is what the Fund is.

I doubt if there are many donations from the general public now. The book will have brought in substantial income but then Carter Ruck don't come cheap. I don't believe what Kate says in the book that they do a lot of work pro bono.

So unless they make the film of the book (suggestions for actors to play Kate and Gerry welcome), funds could run out if they keep on the threatening legal tactics.

I also agree that people may be paid to troll sites and cause confusion and dissent.

I'm just hoping that the SY enquiry will conclude at the very least that Madeleine is dead and therefore the fund will have to close. The aims of the fund as stated in the records allow the money to be used for the McCanns, so there is nothing that can be done about that. There has been no open disclosure of accounts as was promised initially, so SY might request full disclosure. Particularly since e.g. Metodo told the press that they had nothing like the money that the Fund said was paid for their services. Those might be investigated. Then there was the cash that was sent to Rothley, was that declared to Inland Revenue? Are they paying the requisite taxes on people they employ? From the charwoman up to the people who scan the anti sites for them? They got Al Capone on tax, remember!

You raise the issue of taxes and whether the appropriate ones are being paid.

Now as a limited company the Fund is audited. if there were taxation irregularities, the auditor would have to point them out and insist they were corrected.

Under company law, the accounts only need to give summarised information of Income and Expenditure - which the accounts do. So SY would have no case to investigate just because the accounts are (legally) unhelpful.

Kate said in the book how accountable and transparent the Fund would be. Joke! there's no information whatsoever on the website about their finances - which any reputable organisation (whether with charity status or not) looking for money from the public would have up there.

Does anyone know whether tax applies to donations from the public or from the Mccanns donating their book royalties? Tax would apply to the profits from the online shop and to interest on deposit but I am not sure about donations.

@pauline wrote:Does anyone know whether tax applies to donations from the public or from the Mccanns donating their book royalties? Tax would apply to the profits from the online shop and to interest on deposit but I am not sure about donations.

Donations to their Limited company have to be treated as 'income'. Tax is not paid on the 'income' but on the 'profit' made after deduction of operating costs and allowable expenses. Solicitor's fees being very much a Company operating expense.

If the Fund had a proper charity status donations are tax exempt. They would also be able to claim Gift Aid on those donations

@pauline wrote:Does anyone know whether tax applies to donations from the public or from the Mccanns donating their book royalties? Tax would apply to the profits from the online shop and to interest on deposit but I am not sure about donations.

Donations to their Limited company have to be treated as 'income'. Tax is not paid on the 'income' but on the 'profit' made after deduction of operating costs and allowable expenses. Solicitor's fees being very much a Company operating expense.

If the Fund had a proper charity status donations are tax exempt. They would also be able to claim Gift Aid on those donations

Thank you for clarifying that.

Of course they are regarding huge legal fees for threatening people as allowable expenses, so the tax involved might not be that much. Solicitors fees are a normal allowable expense but in this case I would not regard CR fees as allowable as they are not related to the official purposes of the company which is to find madeleine.

Could the Revenue be asked to examine the expenses claimed and to rule on the legal expenses?

I'd forgotten that! Part of the original plan was a) to stay in Portugal indefinitely - Amaral making them arguidos scuppered that plan.b) the Fund to be a Charity - that must have been a blow as it would have saved them a lot of money.c) G and K to become Ambassadors for lost children? Certainly Gerry was full of plans not to mention the wider agenda. Hence the CEOP, Amber Alert, unauthorised use of image of other lost child (Spanish), still even now linking with unlikely 'similar' causes. Gerry's visit to Washington to liaise with the authorities there (how did they understand him?) Possible link with microchipping children and so on.

I've been puzzling over why they didn't want to come back to the UK. Still don't know the reason, but running things from the Algarve wouldn't be a problem. They were going to learn Portugese and Gerry said as early as June that the twins wouldn't start school for another three years, so...

Re the cash that poured into Rothley, didn't Clarrie say just to put it in an enveloppe and address it to Gerry and Kate in Rothley and it would get there? Tax on every penny of that money has to be paid. I would think that that alone would have run into the tens of thousands, so many people donated.